Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series of stories that focuses on people who are making a difference in education in the River Valley.

CLARKSVILLE — As the oldest institution of higher education in Arkansas, University of the Ozarks has a long and proud tradition of providing a Christian-based undergraduate education.

Now in its 179th year, U of O has been widely recognized as one of the premier private universities in the country.

It has been ranked as a “top tier” university in the South for the past 14 years by U.S. News & World Report and in 2012 was rated 25th overall among the nation’s more than 250 baccalaureate colleges by Washington Monthly magazine.

The university’s mission of providing intellectual, social and spiritual development to its students is embodied in the dedication and commitment of the nearly 200 faculty, staff and other employees.

Here are five faculty and staff members at U of O who are making a positive and everlasting impact on the lives of college students.

Jesse Weiss

Whether it’s using Barbie dolls in his classroom to teach about social stereotypes, organizing the Disc Golf Association or the Swim Club, taking freshmen students on a ropes course challenge, using comic graphic novels to teach pop culture, or lip syncing with his family to his own spirited version of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” for an Amnesty International fundraiser, Dr. Jesse Weiss is definitely one cool professor.

As a matter of fact, Weiss, an associate professor of sociology and environmental studies, was named one the country’s 10 “Coolest Professors” by Best Colleges Online in 2012.

Weiss, who received the university’s Bagwell Outstanding Faculty Award last year, includes among his inspirations Pete Townsend of The Who, Bob Dylan, painter Alex Ross, and sociologists C. Wright Mills and Herbert Blumer.

“Sociology does not hold all the answers, but it can help you find them,” said Weiss, who earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas and his Ph.D. from Utah State. “To be successful in this field, students need to learn critical thinking, to have an open mind and a willingness to see the world from multiple perspectives.”

In his Intro to Sociology class, he holds an annual “Barbie Bash,” a project in which students are asked to examine gender roles in American society and design Barbie or Ken dolls which go against such gender categorization.

“After Christmas I buy up a lot of Barbies off the clearance racks,” Weiss said. “This project looks at gender socialization — the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture — and so the assignment is to re-imagine Barbie or Ken in violation of stereotypical gender norms. They make new costumes and props for their dolls, and in their presentation talk about how they would market the Barbie, what they would call it, and whether or not they consider their projects to be positive or negative role models.”

It’s easy to see why Weiss is a favorite among students. He is routinely involved in such things as co-hosting a weekly campus radio show with Biology Professor Dr. Sean Coleman about such pop culture topics as the TV show “The Walking Dead” and mixed martial arts.

“Pop culture gets the attention of students,” Weiss said. “It can help them see how sociology can apply to their world and it’s as valid a source of information as anything.”

Gilbert Parks

The year was 1964. The country was still recovering from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Beatles were being introduced to Americans on national television by Ed Sullivan. Newsman Walter Cronkite was informing the nation nightly about a growing conflict in a place called Vietnam. Skateboards, bellbottom jeans, Lava Lights, the TV show “Gilligan’s Island” and a new U.S. Post Office feature called zip codes were the hot new fads.

And in Clarksville, a young social science professor, fresh out of graduate school, was teaching his first college class at U of O.

Forty-nine years later, Gilbert Parks is still teaching political science and government classes at Ozarks. For almost five decades, Parks has been a fixture at the university, helping to educate and mentor hundreds of young college students, many of whom developed a love of law, politics and public service under his guidance.

Parks’ classes are a mix of professor-student dialog that makes his students think beyond the obvious and understand how political science prepares them to be responsible and effective citizens of their society and the world. His fellow faculty members recognized the impact of Parks’ teaching, awarding him the university’s Bagwell Outstanding Faculty Member award in both 1988 and 1992.

“Professor Parks changed my path. I took my first class with him and enjoyed it so much I ended up taking another one the next semester,” said Kendra Akin Jones, a 2001 Ozarks graduate who is now an attorney in Little Rock. “Professor Parks pushed us to challenge and examine our beliefs and what supported those beliefs and where those beliefs were formed. It was a different way of thinking and approaching an issue. It all turned into me getting a political science degree and going to law school. His influence on me was instrumental in becoming a lawyer.”

Parks loves to talk about his former students almost as much as he loves to discuss politics. He’ll tell you about the corporate lawyer from Kansas City who is also an accomplished artist; the shy, timid “wet nose” freshman who grew up to be a high school principal in Chicago; the former basketball player from Mulberry who went on to run an orphanage in Cape Cod, Mass.; and the 7-footer who started out with a 2.2 grade point average before going on to finish third in his class at Notre Dame Law School and becoming a corporate attorney in Miami.

“I am inspired when a student takes a risk, endures the pressures and demands that go with accomplishing that vision and comes away from the endeavor having grown intellectually to the point that the next step takes them to a new vision,” Parks said. “To see creation recreate is breathtaking. The reach beyond the expected once again convinces me humans can learn to be creative in a positive way.”

Kim Van Scoy

Dr. Kim Van Scoy, associate professor of life science education, began her professional career in research, but it didn’t take her long to discover that she had a passion for teaching.

“Because my background had always been research I was surprised that I enjoyed teaching so much,” said Van Scoy, who has taught at Ozarks since 2007. “In fact, I found it to be even more satisfying than the research I was conducting. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than sharing the beauty of science with young adults.

The science bug bit Van Scoy when she was a child growing up in Florida.

“I remember, as a middle school student I did not enjoy science, simply because I did not see its connection to the world around me,” she said. “I was the type of student who loved the outdoors and hated being in a classroom. It never occurred to me that everything that happens outdoors is actually science. It’s all biology, chemistry, physics and geology. Once I made that connection, I was hooked. This is why science still appeals to me. It explains everything around us. I always tell my students, the beauty is you don’t have to memorize science, you just have to understand it. It all makes sense. Once we view science as the way our world works, it becomes completely relevant. Thank goodness for my middle school science teacher who nurtured that understanding.”

Being widely traveled herself, Van Scoy is heavily involved in the university’s study abroad program. She grew up in Florida, earned her undergraduate degree in California, received her Ph.D. at the University of Miami, did post-doctorate work in both Massachusetts and England, and taught in Wisconsin.

In recent years, Van Scoy has taken students to experience the Amazon region in South America and to study the Mayan culture in Mexico. Next semester she will team-teach a class that will culminate with a trip to visit volcanoes and live among the Maasai people of Kenya.

“There is a quote from the Senegalese poet Baba Dioum: ‘In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught,’” she said. “Whether you apply that quote to the environment or to other inhabitants on our planet I think it is very true. The best way to produce students who respect and celebrate diversity is to share it with them. The best way to produce students who respect and celebrate the wonders of our planet is to share it with them. To me, that is the goal of study abroad.”

Joe Hoing

At 6-foot-4 and possessing a larger-than-life personality, Joe Hoing is quite literally the BMOC (Big Man on Campus) at Ozarks. The former college All-American lineman is the university’s dean of students, meaning he often handles disciplinary issues that arise, and in almost three decades in the position he has gained a reputation among students as a fair and compassionate administrator.

“If there ever was the perfect job created for a person, it’s Joe Hoing as dean of students,” said Jack Thorp, a 1996 Ozarks graduate who works as an attorney in Oklahoma. “He truly loves and cares for students,and he’s going to do everything possible to help them succeed.”

A native of Coal Hill, Hoing was an all-American football player at Arkansas Tech University in the early 1970s. After tryouts with the Houston Oilers and Philadelphia Eagles, Hoing, who has a master’s degree in counseling, found his niche in higher education. He was hired at Ozarks in 1984 as a program coordinator in the Jones Learning Center and became dean of students two years later.

“I try to treat students with dignity and respect,” Hoing said. “If there’s a problem, we’ll sit down and talk about it and figure out how to handle it. I’ve found that if you deal with people the right way, they can see that and they are going to appreciate it.”

Hoing is also the university’s unofficial fitness guru. He has taught weight lifting classes for the past 20 years and he can often be found walking around campus preaching the virtues of eating healthy and staying fit to students and employees. There’s even a campus-wide fitness competition titled “Are You Joe Enough?” named in his honor.

Hoing said he enjoys hearing from former students, some of whom overcame obstacles and challenges while in college.

“There’s no better feeling in the world than to hear back from students who are out in the world and who are living successful lives,” Hoing said. “To know you maybe had a small part in their success is very satisfying.”

Susan Edens

Susan Edens has a simple explanation as to how she was first drawn to the world of radio and television broadcasting as a young child.

“Growing up, I wanted to be the next Carol Burnett,” Edens said. “Soon after that I discovered my love for journalism and for the art and craft of audio and visual story-telling. The camera and the microphone became instruments through which I could convey important and meaningful stories and even, occasionally, make people laugh.”

Edens shares that passion for communication with her students as the university’s director of broadcasting and as an instructor in the radio/television/video program. A 1992 graduate of Ozarks, Edens spent several years working in radio before returning to Ozarks, first as an admission counselor. In 2002 she was hired to teach in the RTV program and run the university’s campus television and radio stations, which are housed in the university’s new, technologically advanced Walker Hall.

“We now have a studio that rivals or beats most of the news stations in Arkansas and a fully outfitted master control room as well as six digital editing suites and a radio station complete with production and control rooms,” Edens said. “But you can have all the fancy equipment and facilities in the world and if you’re not teaching students the current information in an ever-growing and evolving media field, you miss the mark. I am proud of our history, and I am humbled to work with the faculty and students I work with now. This is a place of innovation that puts students first.”

Edens, who comes from a family of educators, particularly enjoys working with students in real-world production scenarios, ranging from live newscasts to multiple-camera shoots of sports, elections, debates, comedies and films.

Last semester, she and her students produced an election night live broadcast special from the Johnson County Courthouse that lasted more than five hours.

“The wonderful thing about teaching at the college level, and especially at Ozarks, is I get to experience some of the best moments of academic and pre-professional discovery right along with some of the most outstanding young men and women in the world,” she said.

“The students inspire me when they go the extra mile and when they want to help grow our program. When they successfully complete the RTV major at Ozarks, they are ready to work in the modern media production and communication field.”

Larry Isch is director of media relations at the University of the Ozarks.